


Book Lover

by pollitt



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bookstores, First Kiss, First Time, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley & Aziraphale. A bookstore. Aziraphale finds a rare book and they both find something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Book Lover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xylodemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/gifts).



> Thank you to Maverick for the beta and assistance in helping me with the ending. She always knows the right question to ask. 
> 
> Thank you to L for the prompt _Crowley/Aziraphale and bookstore sex_.
> 
> And to Xylodemon, I hope you had a lovely holiday. I tried to combine some of your fic likes into this story. I hope you enjoy!

In the end, it was Edgar Allen Poe who could take the credit for what happened.

Crowley had been subltly rearranging the contents of a bookshelf--making them only _slightly_ dealphabetized but not wholly choatic and random--while Aziraphale had been perusing the shelves behind him when the angel made a noise that Crowley didn’t know he knew how to make.

It was that sound more than the sudden grip of Aziraphale’s hand on his own unoccupied one that made Crowley’s fingers twitch, sending a small pile of books tumbling to the floor. 

“Is everything okay?” a voice asked from a number of shelves over. “Mr. Fell?”

“Everything is just wonderful. Just jostled a couple of books. We’re quite okay.” Aziraphale answered, dropping Crowley’s hand. His next words were quiet and to Crowley alone. “I had wondered if I’d ever hold this again.” 

Crowley looked down at the book and read, “ _Tamerlane and Other Poems_. Am I supposed to know who ‘A Bostonian’ is?” 

“Edgar--Poe, that is--published this anonymously. Only 50 were printed.”

“I would have thought that was something you had already,” Crowley said, trying--and failing--to tamp down the irrational spark of jealousy he felt over the way Aziraphale was looking at and touching the book.

“I _did_ ,” Aziraphale said, his voice dropping lower as he gently ran his fingers over the spine. Crowley shivered. “Edgar even inscribed it, but--”

“You lost it, didn’t you?” Crowley asked. He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed when Aziraphale’s fingers stopped moving. 

“Unintentionally delocated.” Aziraphale’s voice was back to its familiar mix of exasperated and affectionate, and a mix, Crowley realized perhaps for the first time, that was for him alone. 

“If you say so.” Crowley plucked the treasured title out of the angel’s hands and placed it on the highest shelf he could reach--“Intentionally relocating,” he explained--and sank his fingers into the soft waves at Aziraphale’s temples. 

Aziraphale didn’t seem so much surprised as seemingly unaware this was going to happen-- _That makes two of us_ , Crowley thought--but by the time Crowley had leaned all the way, his hands were cupping the back of Crowley’s neck and his kiss was anything but hesitant. 

Crowley almost expects the sky and land to rend apart at the touch. For the two of them to be inconveniently discorporated under an avalanche of books--including a rare Poe limited edition--and sending them to their respective home offices. But it doesn’t. Neither Heaven nor Hell seemed too upset about the notion of a field agent romance, as it were. 

When they pulled apart some minutes later, Crowley could still feel the warmth from where Aziraphale had touched him, and Aziraphale’s hair was sticking up at various angles.

“Please tell me that wasn’t because of that book,” he asked, swiping his thumb over his lips. They tingled.

“You were the one who kissed me. Was that because of the book?” Aziraphale asked, smoothing his hand over his hair with little success at taming the teased waves.

“No.” Crowley took a step back and bumped into the bookshelf behind him. “Maybe.” He slid back into Aziraphale’s space. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Is the book the reason for my accepting your advance?” Aziraphale’s hands slid up Crowley’s side and back, from his hip to the wings of his shoulderblades. “No.”

“Well you seemed pretty damn excited to find that book.” He was playing for compliments now. Even if the angel didn’t say another word, his answer would be enough.

Aziraphale knows that’s the case, of course, but he is, first and foremost, an agent of goodness, and so the angel said more. “My dear. _Tamerlane_ is only two centuries old. This, ” Aziraphale’s hands skimmed down along the length of Crowley’s spine. “has been around almost since the Beginning.”

“At least since the Arrangement,” Crowley agreed. It seemed only natural, then, to slither his arms around Aziraphale's neck. “Perhaps we should revise those terms.”

“Perhaps we should.” One of the angel’s hands slipped into the back pocket of Crowley’s jeans and pulled him closer.

“You’re not suggesting now, are you angel?” Crowley said, adopting a scandalized tone. “Who’s supposed to be doing the tempting here?”

“You’ve been a bad influence on me.” Aziraphale leaned in for another kiss. 

“It’s the bookstore, isn’t it?” Crowley looked around them, at the endless rows of books. Somewhere in the stacks was the bookseller, someone Aziraphale knew, who could walk into their aisle at any time. “If there was ever going to be a place for this to begin.”

“I often thought it would be the Ritz,” Aziraphale confessed, and Crowley felt his world shift a little. He blinked, he remembered to blink and then he blinked again. And then he came back to himself and he focused on the feel of their bodies pressed together from chest to groin to knee. 

To. Groin.

“Aziraphale. Did you?”

“I made an ... An effort.”

Crowley reached down and pressed the heel of his hand against the front of Aziraphale’s sensible trousers. The angel’s eyes fluttered and he gasped, taking a step back and into the bookcase, sending more books tumbling to the floor.

“We’re okay,” Aziraphale said loudly, preempting the bookseller’s query. “Quite okay. Just... Just a little clumsy today.”

Crowley leaned in so his lips brushed Aziraphale's ear as he spoke. “We can call it whatever you’d like." He ran his thumb along the zipper and button of Aziraphale's trousers and they opened at his touch. "Just so you know, the effort is appreciated."

"Oh I am _glad_ ," Aziraphale said, pushing into Crowley's hand when the demon nipped at his ear. His hands, still in Crowley's back pockets, flexed and Crowley moved against Aziraphale's thigh. "And I am utterly delighted for your effort as well."

“I’ll show you effort,” Crowley promised. 

And then he did. And they did. 

And some time later, when Aziraphale made another noise--and Crowley had made one in reply--it had nothing to do with Poe at all. That credit was Crowley’s and Crowley’s alone.

**Author's Note:**

> The book Aziraphale finds is real, as is the fact that Poe had it published anonymously. 
> 
> _Tamerlane and Other Poems_ , is one of the most coveted rare books according to [How Stuff Works](http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/10-rare-books.htm#page=3).


End file.
